The United States Power Industry, ISO Markets, Electric Power Transactions, & Renewable Energy Resources – 2-Day Seminar (Brisbane, United States – October 15-16, 2019) – ResearchAndMarkets.com

This in-depth, ambitious and fast-paced program provides a comprehensive and clear explanation of the structure, function, and current status of today’s U.S. electric power industry and the many industry topics listed below, but it also adds material to address the fundamentals of power marketing and how competitive physical, financial and heat rate power transactions are designed and executed at the wholesale and end-user retail levels – both within and outside of an ISO footprint. The basics of heat rates, spark spreads, tolling deals, generation optionality, and heat-rate-linked power transactions are also addressed.

Before addressing power marketing and transactions, this fast-paced seminar provides a comprehensive and clear explanation of the structure, function, and current status of today’s U.S. electric power industry; who the industry players are, and why it is so difficult to develop new projects and get things done; the fundamentals of ISO day-ahead auctions, LMP, FTRs, CRRs, LSEs, SCs, QSEs and forward capacity markets; the basics of utility cost-of-service ratemaking, competitive customer choice retail markets, heat rates, electricity storage, solar, wind, distributed energy resources (DER), demand response and demand side management (DSM); and the reliability and economic Duck Curve type of issues raised by the integration of renewable energy, DER, and electricity storage resources into the existing power grid.

Each part of this complex industry will be explained piece-by-piece, and then the pieces will be integrated so that attendees will leave with an understanding of how it all fits together.

What You Will Learn

The structure and function of the electric service system, its terminology and units, and the properties of electricity.

How the North American power grid is structured, how it operates and what the different types of electric generation are.

Who the key players in the industry are, and why the industry is so difficult to restructure.

How cost-of-service utility ratemaking and open access deregulated markets work, and why open access retail electricity markets are finally developing in states that permit them.

What ISOs, RTOs, ITCs and merchant transmission companies are, and how they operate.

What the smart grid, demand side management (DSM), distributed energy resources (DER) and demand response (DR) are, and how these forms of virtual generation and renewable energy resources are disrupting the U.S. power industry.

The opportunities and challenges associated with wind, solar and other renewables.

What locational marginal pricing (LMP) is and why it is important; how Day-Ahead and Real Time LMP is applied in the ISO markets, and why FTRs, TCCs, CRRs, TCRs , virtual bids (Incs & Decs) and convergence bidding are important to understand.

What capacity markets and resource adequacy are, and how this important issue relates to demand response, DER and demand side management and affects the integration of wind, solar and other renewables into the existing power grid.

An overview of Utility scale solar, rooftop solar, and net metering, and wind and other renewable energy resources.

What the Western Grid “Energy Imbalance Market” is, and why it is important to understand Community Choice Aggregators, the California “Duck Curve” and “FRAC-MOO.”

You Will Also Learn

The terminology, concepts and mechanics of physical, financial & heat rate power transactions.

How to transport physical power using OASIS and NERC tags, and how and why companies often move physical power financially causing it to jump’ between regions.

The difference between physical, scheduled, and contract path power flows.

What “sellers choice” is, and how transaction “daisy chains” form at virtual trading hubs.

How and why physical power transactions are often booked-out and settled in cash, and why bilateral transactions in ISO markets are primarily financial.

How to execute wholesale and retail power marketing transactions both within and outside of an ISO area–including commonly used contract language and NERC tags; how to manage LMP, basis, delivery, volumetric, intermittency and operational risks; and why NITS, TAC, UCAP, resource adequacy and ancillary service charges need to be included.

The difference between operating, economic, market and negotiated heat rates, and what the terms spark spread, dark spread and bark spread mean.

What “tolling deals” are, and how the powerful technique of heat-rate-linked power transactions can be used.

How a natural gas-fired generating plant is a call option on the spark spread, what “optionality” means, and a simple rule to use to optimize the economics of a natural gas or coal-fired merchant generating plant.